The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree
by Lirillith
Summary: Kaede's too much like her father for her own good sometimes.


It's been a long time since Muramasa saw Kristin Takeda — it's actually Chen, now, she got married, but in his head she's still the girl from his drama class — but she hasn't changed a bit. He tells her as much, and she says, "Oh, I just wish," and then "_you_ look great," and he demurs, and so on. He knows she's working at Kaede's school (either nurse or some kind of admin thing; he doesn't want to admit he forgot) so he's not surprised to have her ask about Kaede while he rings up her handful of microbrews, but he's a little surprised by the way she asks.

"Is Kaede doing better now?"

Better. Better than what? A blank "huh?" just makes him look like a terrible uncle, but that's nearly what he produces. "I, uh, don't really hear about what's going on with her at school unless she needs help with math," he says. "Or geography. What happened?"

"Oh," Kris says. "I thought your mother might have mentioned it. Kaede got in a fight, a while back — there'd been some bullying and apparently she'd had enough."

"Huh," Muramasa says, thoughtfully. "No, she never did. I'll have to ask Mom. Sometimes she doesn't bother me with this kind of stuff, but just because I'm not around all the time doesn't mean I don't need to _know._"

"Families," she says, with a good-natured sigh. "I hope things are going better, anyway! Good to see you, Muramasa."

"You too," he says, but he's thinking. This all feels awfully familiar, and it wasn't his _mom_ keeping him in the dark back then.  
.

* * *

.

He closes up the store early — he's going to have to hire somebody, at least part-time, after he got spoiled by having Kotetsu around over the past year — and goes to the school to pick her up. Kaede's walking by herself, head down; he honks to get her attention, because it's faster than leaning across to the passenger side to roll down the window. Vintage has its downsides. She jumps, and she looks almost scared for a second, then angry, before she runs up to the van and yanks the passenger door open. "Uncle Muramasa, what are you doing here?" she demands.

"Giving you a ride home. Get in."

"I don't need a ride home," she complains, but she climbs in, folds her arms over her chest, and glares at the glove box. Muramasa waits, pointedly, until she gets the idea and buckles her seatbelt. He starts the motor, maneuvers out of the school's cramped parking lot, and waits till he's on the road in hopes she'll say something.

"Why didn't you want a ride?" he asks, finally, when he realizes she's in full-on sulk mode.

She turns her head to glare out the window. "This stupid old van is _embarrassing,_" she says. "Who asked you to come pick me up, anyway? I can walk home on my own just fine."

"What's so embarrassing about it?" he asks, trying not to sound nettled. There's nothing about this van or the family business or this family to be ashamed of, he thinks, but there's something going on here, and he doesn't want to get sidetracked. She doesn't answer, though. "Next time I'll ask first," he says, trying for conciliatory and probably falling a little short. She just hmmphs at him. "C'mon, Kaede. I'm sorry."

"Then why'd you _do_ it? You're always at the store when I get home from school!"

"Kaede, are you having problems at school?"

"My grades are FINE."

"That's not what I meant."

"I don't know what you're talking about, then."

"You weren't walking with any of your friends this time," he says. "And you're awfully touchy about having me show up at your school."

"So? It's none of your business. You're not my dad."

"No," he says evenly, "but I am your uncle. It's kind of my job to worry." She hasn't uncrossed her arms since she buckled her seatbelt. "I haven't called your dad yet," he adds.

"Well don't! There's nothing to call him about. Everything's _fine._"

"That's not what I heard."

"Who told you?!" she demands. He doesn't answer, or look at her, just waits it out. "Don't tell Dad," she says, switching to pleading. "Please, Uncle Muramasa? I don't want him to worry. It's all fine now. It was just a stupid fight and it's over now."

"I won't," he says, "_if_ you tell me the whole story."

She tells him, reluctantly at first, but as she goes on she gets more heated, getting mad all over again. It's about what he expected; they've been down this road before, with Kotetsu, but it's a little different this time. It didn't start right away, for one thing, and it's not entirely about being a NEXT. There'd been teasing, "mostly boys being obnoxious," she said, "making stupid perverted jokes," and he's about to get all protective-rage about that when she adds, "why'd he have to make a big deal out of one minute?"

So it was making fun of Kotetsu, as much as anything targeted at her, that set her off. Muramasa wondered if there was more she wasn't telling him — if any of the perverted jokes were about her, about powers that involved _touching,_ anything like that — but she's Kotetsu's daughter, so if there's something bad she doesn't want to spill, he doesn't expect to get it out of her easily. Maybe, he hopes, getting to vent her frustrations a little will help. Maybe she's telling the truth about the fight settling the matter. Maybe it's some little pubescent asshole who thought being a jerk was the right way to talk to girls, and maybe he and his buddies have learned, now.

"Boys that age are obnoxious a lot," Muramasa says. "They think they're being cool. Guys do a lot of stupid things trying to be cool. Like your dad."

"He's _not_ trying to be cool," she says. "One minute? Adding that to his _name?_"

"Yeah, he finally grew up a little. Decided to stop pretending he's a badass."

"He's still cooler than Hajime's dad," she grumps, and Muramasa hides a grin. Kotetsu would kill to overhear this. "Or Jason's. And he's not bald."

"They're just jealous," Muramasa suggests. She scoffs, but she's smiling a little the next time he glances her way.

"Anyway," she says. "After I punched Hajime everyone else kind of freaked out and ran off, but it was off of school grounds so they couldn't really do anything. Some of the teachers heard about it the next day, and we got called to the counselor's office to talk, but they didn't call his parents, or Grandma. And after that none of the boys bothered me."

"What about the girls?"

She looks out the window, again. Muramasa skips the turn towards the house, continuing back to the store. "We're going into town?" she asks.

"I figured you didn't want to talk about this in front of your grandma."

She nods slightly.

"The girls?" he prompts.

She makes a slight noise of disgust. "The girls all act like I'm _Lunatic_ or something because I hit somebody once," she says. "It's so _stupid._ Maria and Hannah still talk to me at practice or on the phone, but not at school. Who needs friends who don't want to be seen with you?"

Somebody who doesn't have any other kinds of friends, he thinks, but he's glad she's got enough pride to have a problem with it. "Sometimes crappy friends are better than none," he says, and she giggles a little, like he actually swore, "but that doesn't make them _good_ friends."

"Yeah," she sighs, and they both fall silent. Decades of perspective haven't given him any more of an idea of what to say. _Your dad went through this too and he turned out okay,_ or _it gets better eventually._

Kaede hadn't gotten any static about her powers when they first showed up, because they weren't the kind, like Kotetsu's, that'd be noticed as easily; they kept her out of school when she super-strong and breaking things. It only came out when she went to Stern Bild during that whole mess when Kotetsu was framed for murder, and she came back from the city a hero in her own right. Her friends at school thought she was _awesome;_ she'd been on the live broadcast, before she did that thing with her powers that knocked it offline, so they knew who she was even in the follow-up interviews where her face was obscured. Muramasa has to give Hero TV credit. When they reported the whole deal, they kept Kaede's identity as hidden as they could and tried to explain away the link between Kotetsu and Wild Tiger. No one in town bought it, because they knew the backstory — the Kaburagi kid who'd been a NEXT, grown up and gone to the city, and his daughter — but Hero TV at least tried.

So her friends thought she was the best thing ever, thought it was really cool that her absentee dad was a hero, and Muramasa can imagine there was some reinforcement at home, too; parents who used to cluck at Kotetsu's absence now satisfied that all was explained and he wasn't a deadbeat. Kotetsu moved home a little after the first of the year, and if he moped a little, missed the heroics and the city itself and the people he knew there, he tried not to let Kaede see it. Kaede had liked having her dad around, her friends had been impressed rather than calling her a freak, and then her dad goes back to the city and suddenly it's all teasing and picking fights. She was pricklier without him around. She probably took offense at teasing she once would have laughed off, and kids, sharks that they are, scented blood and kept hammering at her weak points. It didn't help that with Kotetsu around the house, their mother had let herself get old, a little; she'd ask him to get things off the high shelves or carry the heaviest groceries, not even realizing she was doing it, and then when he was gone she realized her knees had gotten bad enough she couldn't get up the stepladder. Kaede didn't see how it had happened, just that Grandma was acting older, and it scared her.

"You know, when your dad was a kid, people were a lot more anti-NEXT," Muramasa finally says. They're only about a block from the store, but they should have some time there before anyone comes in. "He had some rough times when he was your age, too."

"He did?"

"Yeah. And he still managed to make some friends, eventually, meet your mom… it stinks, and I wish I could fix it, but it's not going to be like this forever."

She nods again, as he pulls the car to a stop. "Thanks, Uncle Muramasa."

"You can stick around and do your homework here," he says, "or you can—" and that's when her phone rings.

"It's Dad!" she says, breaking out in a grin, and then she answers it immediately.

"_Kaede! You're out of school by now, right honey?_" It's loud enough Muramasa can hear even though the phone's not on speaker, and Kaede winces and pulls the phone away from her ear.

"You're too loud!" she complains, but she's still smiling, and Muramasa notices it never quite goes away, the whole time he's unlocking the store. She'd _liked_ having her dad around, no matter what she said about how he was cooler as a hero than as a couch potato. She stays in the front seat, and he leaves her in peace there for a while; she doesn't usually get much privacy to talk to Kotetsu. He knows them both better than to hope that she'll confide in her dad about any of what she just told him. She climbs out of the car, eventually, and he watches her hook her backpack over one shoulder, still on the phone; she's laughing at something, and it finally clicks in his head.

Kaede sent Kotetsu off, Muramasa thinks. She pushed exactly the right button, telling him he wasn't cool anymore, sending him back to do what he'd always wanted to do because that was how he was happiest; but she's still a kid and she can't help feeling the way she feels when he's not around.

She's not four years old anymore. She's nearly twelve. More than old enough to look after herself at home when Kotetsu's at work. Hell, if he heard right some of the younger heroes got started at around that age. Stern Bild may be more dangerous than Oriental Town, but there are millions of kids living there, and she's better-equipped than most of them to take care of herself. There's an obvious solution here.

Obvious, which means he can't count on Kotetsu to see it. And since Kaede clearly takes after her dad in a lot of ways, she might not come up with it on her own, either. But that's what the rest of the family's for.


End file.
